Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] May 1, 2022 “Life After Hate” Acts 9: 1-6 – New Revised Standard Version Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” Shane Johnson is one of the “formers,” what people formerly involved in white nationalism call themselves. He was raised in a family that had been members of the KKK for generations, in a town in Indiana where at one time half of the population belonged to the Klan. One night in jail after a drunken brawl, he had his own “Damascus Road” conversion. When he told his family that he was leaving the KKK behind, they broke nearly every bone in his body and left him along the road as close to dead as you can get. He recovered, but worse than the broken bones, he lost the people and place where he belonged. Even though Shane’s father instilled hate in him from the moment of his birth, Shane believes most people don’t join hate groups because they are hate-filled but because someone invited them to belong, to have a purpose. So, with his background, a couple of years ago he was invited to consult on an app that would identify “hate tweets.” The program would automatically reply, “If you’re tired of living in the darkness of a hate-filled life, there’s a way out. No judgment. Just help.” Shane thought the idea was ridiculous and that such a message would actually lead people to double down, not leave. He said, “You are shaming them as living dark, hate-filled lives. You need to engage them.” Shane has dedicated his life to exactly that. Today’s passage from the Book of Acts is commonly referred to as Paul’s Damascus Road Experience – the original, ultimate dramatic story of conversion. By the way, Saul and Paul are the same person. Luke, the author of Acts, uses the names interchangeably, depending on the context. We first heard the name Saul in Acts chapter 7 when one of the disciples named Stephen was being killed by stoning. Saul held the coats of those busy picking up rocks. Then in chapter 8, Saul “enthusiastically ravaged the church by entering house after house, dragging off both men and women” who belonged to The Way, the earliest descriptors of those who followed the Way of Jesus. Incidentally, they wouldn’t have dragged off women if they hadn’t also been leaders in the church. So here we are now in chapter 9 and Saul was “still spewing murderous threats against the disciples.” He’s gone to the high priest in Jerusalem requesting letters to take with him to the synagogues in Damascus, giving permission to arrest followers of Jesus and drag them off to prison in Jerusalem. Why? Maybe Saul is just protecting the integrity of his religion. He feels a duty to safeguard something he loves and maybe he’s just a little too zealous about it. But John Dominic Crossan describes his zeal as “religious vigilantism.” You know, the kind of thing that causes someone to hear enough sermons proclaiming “God Hates Fags” to leave church and go assault LGBTQ people on the street. Or kill a doctor who works in a women’s health clinic. Or attend Bible study at a Black Church and kill 9 people. Religious vigilantes may not be explicitly told to do this, but a preponderance of hateful speech from any podium or pulpit and we shouldn’t be surprised. Saul was on his way to Damascus when he heard someone ask why. He heard a voice: Why are you persecuting me? He was dazed by a blinding light and knocked to the ground. Those traveling with Saul heard the voice too, but they saw no one. When Saul opened his eyes, he couldn’t see, so they led him by the hand all the way to Damascus. Three days later, a disciple in Damascus named Ananias had a vision in which he heard Jesus tell him to go find a man named Saul and lay hands on him so he could regain his sight. Ananias had certainly heard of Saul. They all had. He protested, exclaiming “this man has done horrible things to us. He’s here in Damascus to drag your disciples to prison. Why in the world would I restore his sight?” Yes! Exactly. I would say the same thing. I had a bully in school named Tracy. Of the 32 students in my graduating class, I had gone all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade with about 25 of them. In the same building. I could say hi to Mrs. Grund, my first-grade teacher, while walking into Mr. Schaunder’s Future Farmers of America class in high school. The girls went to Future Homemakers of America classes. No kidding. For the most part, we all got along, but things changed when Tracey moved to town when I was in 6th grade. He was in 8th grade. He looked at me and saw something I didn’t know about myself and used every opportunity, for 5 years, to embarrass and humiliate me. I could call it “persecution” but that’s a little too extreme. So, imagine he was failing in school and I had been asked to tutor him. Surely, I would have protested, “Why in the world would I help him?!” A few years ago, I thought I had an opportunity to ask him “why did you persecute me.” It was our town’s 125th anniversary and he still lived there. But actually, just sort of. His brother, who had always been nice to me, told me Tracy had been in prison for the past 10 years. I struggled through some very complicated emotional responses, tempted by thoughts of justice and joy. And then regret for thoughts of justice and joy. Ananias protested that he shouldn’t help Saul but he did as he was asked. He placed his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord sent me so you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And instantly something like scales or flakes fell from Saul’s eyes. He got up and was baptized and stayed in Damascus for several more days. He went to the same synagogues where he intended to arrest men and women who belonged to the Way and instead began to preach that Jesus was the Son of God. Everyone who heard him was baffled. Isn’t he the one who wreaked havoc in Jerusalem? What is he doing? The Christians didn’t believe him and the others were so incensed they hatched a plot to kill him. But the disciples who believed his conversion was real helped him escape. They took him at night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the city wall. When he arrived in Jerusalem, no one there believed him. Rightfully, they were still afraid of him, but Barnabas spoke up and told them about Saul’s Damascus Road Experience. The disciples were reluctantly convinced to accept him. But there were others very unhappy with his conversion who now also wanted to murder him, so a family of believers helped him escape to Caesarea and sent him back home to Tarsus. We don’t hear any more about him for a little while. Quite a story, right? An unexpected reversal, a turning away toward something completely opposite. I understand the reluctance of everyone who doubted that Paul had really changed. Do you ever think it’s hard to believe that someone has truly turned over a new leaf? Many of the “formers” like Shane Johnson feel like they constantly have to prove themselves, their motives always in question. Like Najibullah Zazi. Due to war with Russia, his family was forced to leave Afghanistan when he was just a baby in 1985. They lived on food rations in tents in a refugee camp in Pakistan for 9 years and were finally resettled in New York when he was 14. Things weren’t easy and he dropped out of school in 12th grade, around the time of 9/11. When he was 21, he became an entrepreneur with his own coffee cart in downtown Manhattan, but he still felt out of place, like he wasn’t really welcome in America. And then a friend gave him an audiotape of a cleric which began to convince him he should return to Afghanistan to fight with Al Qaeda to uphold the honor of Islam and liberate his country. He was trained to build bombs and sent back to the US to plan a suicide attack under Grand Central Station during rush hour. The FBI learned of the plot and arrested him and two friends. After his arrest, Najibullah began to provide years of what the government called “extraordinary cooperation.” Ten years in prison and a commitment to life-long cooperation led a judge to say he earned an “unthinkable second chance.” Judge Dearie lamented that impressionable people had been “hijacked and corrupted by the rhetoric of hate.” Najibullah replied, “Your honor, the uneducated are perfect targets for the unscrupulous.” Not everyone was happy. And many people didn’t believe Najibullah had really changed. Like Shane. And maybe Saul. Truthfully, I may have an easier time believing Shane and Najibullah than Saul, or as we better know him, Paul. That’s because Paul’s subsequent words have caused tormenters like Tracy to think they were justified in acting like bullies. Or worse, inspiring future vigilantes. Paul is a complicated guy. One of the one hand he proclaims in Romans chapter 8 38 “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Those are some of the most beautiful inspiring words in the New Testament. And then on the other hand, there are the things he says in Romans chapter 1 that get LGBTQ people killed by religious extremists. Anti-Semites quote the words of Paul straight out of their mouth. On the one hand, Paul encouraged women who were leaders in the early church and on the other diminished them. Exhorted to be silent – or at least by someone writing in his name. And slavery. On one hand he said that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. And on the other, slaves be obedient. Howard Thurman’s grandmother had been a slave. Howard used to read from the Bible for her, but she refused to listen to anything Paul wrote, except 1st Corinthians 13. She had heard enough preaching from Paul about how to be a good slave. Why, Paul, if not you, why do your words continue to persecute? So, we go back to that vision Ananias had. There’s one more thing. Remember, Jesus asked him to visit Saul in order to lay hands on him to restore his sight. Ananias protested. You can’t be serious. All the terrible things he’s done, his reign of terror… But in the vision, Jesus persisted and explained: “This is the man I have chosen.” Regretfully, there have been times I have said “I hate Paul.” How can he be a chosen instrument of God? Well, perhaps the story inspires us to ask: how can you and I be? Or Shane and Tracy and Najibullah. Maybe… to believe that there is life after hate. Not anyone else’s hate, but mine. My reluctance, even refusal, to understand. My reluctance, or refusal, to stop judging. My reluctance, and sadly refusal, to forgive. Eugene Peterson asks us to imagine one individual in whom we see no hope. They will never change. What might it mean to think that God has “chosen” her or him or them? Have you ever had a Damascus Road Experience? “I was one person before and I’m a different person now”? Or maybe not a blinding light of recognition, but a slow, gradual evolution of thought and action, becoming less judgmental. But are there residual judgments we still make about others, or even ourselves? There are a lot of people in our lives, and in our country, we may be reluctant, or even refuse, to understand. To stop judging. Or even imagine we can forgive. Thankfully there is life after hate.
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